"Kiss me, Nan!" he said, the roughness of passion in his voice. "You never kissed me--never in all those beautiful months we were together. And now--now when there's only parting ahead of us--"
His eyes burned down on to her tilted face. She could hear his hurried breathing. His lips were almost touching hers.
. . . Then the door opened quickly and Peter Mallory stood upon the threshold.
Swiftly though they started apart, it was impossible that he should not have seen Rooke holding Nan close in his arms, his head bent above hers. Their attitude was unmistakable--it could have but one significance.
Mallory paused abruptly in the doorway. Then, in a voice entirely devoid of expression, he said quietly:
"Mrs. Seymour left her fan behind--I came back to fetch it." With a slight bow he picked up the forgotten fan and turned to go. "Good-bye once more."
The door closed behind him, and Nan stood very still, her arms hanging down at her sides. But Maryon could read the stricken expression in her eyes--the desperate appeal of them. They betrayed her.
"I don't believe it!" he exclaimed hotly. "He's the man you love. The very expression of your face gave it away."
"I've told you," she answered unemotionally. "Peter Mallory is nothing to me, never can be anything, except"--her voice quivered a little despite herself--"just a friend."
"Then kiss me!" He repeated his earlier demand, imperiously.
The quietly uttered question seemed to set him very far apart from her. In an instant he knew how much he had forfeited by his absence.
"Nan," he said, in his voice a curious charm of appeal, "do you know it's nearly a year since I saw you? And now--now I've only half an hour!"
"Only half an hour?" she repeated vaguely.
"Yes, I go back to Devonshire to-night. But I craved a glimpse of the 'Beloved' before I went."
The words brought Nan sharply back to herself. He was still the same incomprehensible, unsatisfactory lover as of old, and with the realisation a cold fury of scorn and resentment swept over her, blotting out what she had always counted as her love for him. It was as though a string, too tightly stretched, had suddenly snapped.
"No. I shouldn't"--significantly--"call it cheering. I've been back in England a month, alone in the damned desolation of Dartmoor, fighting--fighting to keep away from you."